


And When the Walls Have Fallen

by Masu_Trout



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Male-Female Friendship, Necromancy, ToT: Monster Mash, Trick or Treat: Trick, With Some Stabbing Thrown In For Good Measure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 19:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12539520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: Amaya is the youngest member of the Ghost-Hunter's Guild. She's also, as of a few hours ago, its only member.





	And When the Walls Have Fallen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mornelithe_falconsbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mornelithe_falconsbane/gifts).



“For the record,” Amaya said, her scythe half-buried in her ex-mentor's ribcage, “I am very sorry about this.” 

Possibly the words were starting to sound a little rote—she'd had to apologize three times already in the past half hour, and as it turned out even the horror of gouging into your former least-favorite teacher's rotten and twisted flesh grew less nightmarish with repetition. Still, she felt it had to be said. She was technically the most junior member here, even if she was also the most senior.

Two weeks ago she'd become the youngest recruit in the history of the Ghost-Hunter's Guild. Two hours ago she'd become its captain, by merit of being the only member left living within Eversalius's walls.

The necrotic blight, when it fell over the city, had hit hard and hit fast: the channeling had corrupted the cleansing magic of Eversalius's long-famed barriers (and if there was ever any doubt that the Ghost-Hunter's Guild was superior to the Ward-Builder's Guild, this settled it—she'd be gloating right now if any of them had been left alive to gloat to), then reflected their immense power to burn through the flesh and souls of every living citizen within range of their protection. 

The city guards died before even a single alarm could be raised. The high mages melted where they stood. Royalty and merchants and common workers alike all fell as one. 

And Amaya—Amaya had been down in the guild's deepest dungeon, searching for a clairvoyant tuning fork, because ghost hunters loved nothing more than a good bout of hazing. Just out of range.

Somewhere, some god was laughing at her. She could feel it.

_Worry for your own flesh, student-captain,_ Ser Merrin said teasingly, yanking the edge of her scythe out of his corpse with a scrape of metal-against-bone before flopping lifelessly onto the cobblestones. He righted himself a moment later, pulling himself back up onto all fours before staring her down with his one good eye; the other was a mess of gore and dried blood and some strange not-quite-clear jelly. It turned her stomach to look at it too long. _Desire is an animal, and the man who thinks he has it leashed is the man who wakes inside its belly._

Amaya resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Even now, with his body falling to pieces and his insatiable flesh-hunger overwhelming his better nature every ten minutes or so, he still found it in him to be annoyingly poetic. 

“You could just say you want me to claim you now, you know,” she pointed out. “There's no need for the—the animal metaphors, or whatever that was.”

_The Book of Better Natures,_ he hissed, a touch grumpily, _in translation by Marram Verska D'Akava. Chapter Eleven, Verse Three. And anyhow,_ he added, after just a moment's too long a pause, _I'd never presume to give orders to the Captain. My very being is yours to command._

She'd been hoping to make captain someday—dreamed about it, even, spent every waking moment obsessing over the possibility. This wasn't quite how she'd imagined it, though. For one, she'd always assumed she'd know how to wield a spirit-scythe by the time she put on the badge. For another, she'd thought the rest of the guild would be there to cheer her on, rather than wandering the streets as aching and hollow souls.

Luckily, the Guild-Captain's scythe required little skill to use in situations like these. The spirits of the rageful dead flowed down the streets like a river, a city's worth of life snuffed out in an instant, and she only had to swing the ancient weapon in clumsy arcs through the coursing flood as she whispered, _I claim you, I claim you, I claim you._

They didn't fight. Not once they realized who she was. Spirits like these always wanted retribution. Normally, the Ghost-Hunter's Guild was there to stop them from interfering in the matters of the living, but this… this was different. Exceptions were being made today, and all of them wanted to be by her side for it.

_I claim you_. The baker who'd given her a free loaf of rosemary-bread the day she made guild-apprentice, wisping silvery and shimmering into the metal of the blade.

_I claim you._ Her guild-fellow, the one who'd taught her how to swear in ancient Aerastic, cut loose from their ravaged body and called to her side.

_I claim you._ The blade grew heavier and lighter both with each swing. _I claim you._ She could feel the grief weighing at her, horror and fear and pain building behind the dam of her numbness. _I claim you._ Not yet, not yet, not yet. She couldn't falter now, couldn't afford to cry.

A touch at her side sent her stumbling sideways, waking from the haze she'd let settle over her mind. Ser Merrin had a cold hand 'round her elbow, and for a moment she thought she might have to stab him again, but his remaining eye was still clear and calculating. _Not long now_ , he rasped out, _Can you feel it?_

Amaya paused a moment, focusing on the senses she'd only recently begun to develop. The spirits were lighter here. She could tell that much… but no, more than that. There was a current. They were being dragged, slowly but surely. Up and away from her. Up and up and up—

She let her eyes follow the trail she couldn't quite see. “Oh,” she said, “of course.”

The top of Maniwell Tower. The highest point in the city.

Ser Merrin didn't smile. He didn't have the cheeks for it anymore. But she could hear the pride in his voice when he looked over at her. _Not bad. Better than you ever did in training, anyhow._

Amaya flushed, but didn't rise to the bait. “I mean, I guess it does make sense.” It was where she'd go if she were an evil, city-slaughtering necromancer, after all. The view up there had to make one feel positively maniacal. 

She tilted her head, trying to get a better lock, but she couldn't get a read on the attacker's energy. All she could feel was the city's souls, being pulled inexorably towards the center of power there.

_Her souls,_ said the part of her that was The Captain now. _Her souls, her city, her duty to bring justice_ —

A quick shake of the head cleared those lingering ideas away. She didn't want to think about that little bit of weirdness right now, any more than she wanted to focus on her grief.

“Do you know who it is?” she asked instead.

_Hunters, be cautious: the man who lays a trap for foxes often finds he's tracked a wolf._

Amaya raised an eyebrow.

_…I wouldn't say I know, per se. But I have a guess. Doesn't really matter at this point—one necromancer's battle tactics are the same as the rest. All that power tends to rot the brain, I'm told._

She kept her eyebrow raised. After a moment, she added, “We both know you're desperate to.”

His breath rattled through his punctured lungs in a horrible attempt at a disapproving sigh. _Thirteen Hundred Pleas. Poem Seventy, Line Four, as translated by Ser Liine of Marshen. I wouldn't have to tell you these things if you'd done the readings when I assigned them._

“…Isn't that a book of _erotic_ poetry?” 

_Of course that's the only thing you know about it. It's a true work of art: symbolism in each verse. Layers upon layers of meaning. Which, again, you'd know—_

“—If I'd done the readings. I think I've got it by now.”

She was stalling now. They both knew it. Ser Merrin looked her up and down one final time and said, _Well, I've lead you as far as I can. I assume you're capable of finding your way upstairs on your own?_

Her hands shook around the handle of the scythe. “What if… what if I'm not ready?”

_Well,_ he said, _you're not. You've had just under a fortnight's training, and—if I'm correct about our interloper's identity—he's had a good fifty years at the minimum. That's not the point anymore, though; you have your wits, and your scythe, and the element of surprise. And, for that matter, a city's worth of souls baying for vengeance at your back. He's got a few death-bound monstrosities and some stolen power._

“And if that's not enough?”

_Then the Guild's proud lineage ends here, and a mass-murderer makes off with a city of enslaved souls._ There was a horrible, awkward pause, at which point he added, _… Try to make it be enough._

“Okay.” To her own surprise, she found herself having to choke down a horribly inappropriate laugh. “I. Yeah. I'll make it work.”

_Good._ He shuffled closer so that he was kneeling at her feet. _Let's do this quickly, then, shall we? I'd rather_ —his breath caught on a little snarl— _I'd rather not do through another round of embarrassment._

His eye was starting to cloud over once more. The tendons of his hands clenched and unclenched around the gaps in the rough cobbles. He'd be wild again before long.

Amaya closed her eyes, just for a moment, and sucked in a shuddering breath. Before, she'd hated Ser Merrin's dreary lectures and his silly poetry and his sneering condescension, but… 

All the same, it had been nice to walk with him for a little while. She'd appreciated not being alone. 

“Thank you,” she said as she raised the scythe clean above her head, and then, “Goodbye.” She let her muscles go slack and gravity take over and with the barest hint of breath Amaya whispered her last words to him.

_I claim you._

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt, _The city is overrun by the souls of the dead, and the Captain is the last breathing human inside its walls_ , which I knew I was going to have to try writing the moment I saw it.


End file.
